


Lichtenberg Figures

by faithinthepoor



Series: Desperate Housewives [28]
Category: Desperate Housewives
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 23:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1960806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor/pseuds/faithinthepoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during There Is No Other Way</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lichtenberg Figures

**Author's Note:**

> Follows [Unseemly](http://archiveofourown.org/works/668467), [The Theory of Everything](http://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor), [Here There Be Dragons](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673221), [Somnambulist](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673229), [Wishin’ and Hopin’](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673233), [Nosology](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673238), [Boundary Violations](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673240), [Fractals](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673250), [Windmill Tilting](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673255), [Ambitendency](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673262), [Heisenberg Territory](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673272), [The Illusions of Prisms](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673700), [Keratitis Sicca](http://archiveofourown.org/works/682311), [Schrödinger’s Realm](http://archiveofourown.org/works/682327), [Chiaroscuro](http://archiveofourown.org/works/682358), [Altered Trajectories](http://archiveofourown.org/works/682370), [Elegiacs](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1952136), [Tachyphylaxis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1952244), [Verismo](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1953516), [Forced Perspective](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1953594), [Lex Talionis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1953624), [Repetition Compulsion](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1953663), [Cardioid Geometry](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1953693), [Mereology](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1959777), [Battlelines](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1960131), [Enteropathy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1960167) and [Abnegation](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1960179)

Most of the time she has no need for God and finds the idea of the existence of such a being both improbable and depressing, she is a fan of free will and doesn’t like the existential turmoil created by the thought that it might be an illusion. She wants her triumphs to be her own, not something that is granted to her or something that she has to pray for, she doesn’t want to think that her life is predetermined or that her efforts are meaningless. Most of the time she is willing to accept her failures but there are moments when she thinks it would be easier to believe in God, easier if things weren’t her fault, easier to have someone to blame. Threads of her life are being pulled apart, removed from existence, the tapestry of her soul is becoming threadbare and it would be nice to think that this wasn’t her doing, that her choices were predetermined by some higher power, to believe that there was nothing that she could have done to prevent her fate. 

She wonders if Bree’s faith makes it any easier for her and she hopes it doesn’t because she doesn’t want to think that she is going through this pain alone.

She should be grateful to Bree for giving her the opportunity to end the relationship because deep down she knew that things couldn’t last forever, but didn’t think she’d have ever been able to give Bree up voluntarily, and yet she finds herself feeling bitter and resentful. She tells Susan and Gabby that she is worried and she really is. She is frightened that Bree has a problem but she doesn’t know how to reach her, she couldn’t do it as her girlfriend so she doubts that she has any chance now that they are not even on speaking terms. The breakdown of their relationship hasn’t managed to sever their connection completely, she’s certain that she can feel Bree watching her while she talks to the girls but she refuses to turn around. Being apart from Bree isn’t easy, she feels like a piece of her is missing and she finds that ridiculous, after all she lived for forty odd years without Bree and never felt that she wasn’t complete, there is no reason that she should feel that there is a gaping whole in her heart now that they are no longer together. She doesn’t know how to forgive Bree for what she has done, it’s not just about the lies, in fact it may not be about the lies at all, it’s about the drinking, about being confronted with the undeniable knowledge that she wasn’t enough to keep Bree happy. It is hard to imagine that they will be able to move on from here, it may not even be possible for them to be friends anymore.

Her life doesn’t exclusively revolve around Bree Van de Kamp and as much as she would like to spend her time pining and falling apart she can’t ignore the other players vying for her attention. Tom is being an unbelievable pain in the ass and is really choosing a bad time to paint himself in such a poor light. She knew he wouldn’t be able to separate the worlds of home and work, that he wouldn’t be able to distinguish that her role as his boss and her role as his wife would sometimes be at cross-purposes, it’s why she didn’t want him to take a job there in the first place. His current level of dysphoria and crisis of confidence really irritate her and she can’t believe that he is trying to make her the villain when she did everything that she could to avoid this very situation. She foresaw that Tom working for her would spell disaster but he ignored the reservations that she expressed, she tried to point out that he was padding his resume and in over his head but he insisted on systematically crashing through her perfectly reasonable barriers and in the end she accepted his decision and supported him in his folly. As far as she is concerned this is one occasion in which she is not responsible for the problems in their marriage.

The reality is that Tom is a caddy husband but that’s not her fault, she was like this when he decided to marry her, she doesn’t know what he expected from her and is being to suspect that he thought he would be able to bring her to heel. He did manage to transform her from a rising star of the advertising world to a despondent housewife and mother of four and while work doesn’t hold the appeal for her that it once did, and it certainly suited his caveman ego to have her chained up at home, she was suffocating in that house and she can’t go back to the way things were. It’s possible that they are never going to find a place where they can both be satisfied and she doubts that they can spend the rest of their lives see-sawing up and down trying to locate a balance point. She tries not to think about any of that and to live in the moment but it’s hard when he pulls the pin on sex and pushes her away. He should consider himself lucky that she was willing to sleep with him at all after the dinner table fiasco. The fact that he could even contemplate comparing lax dinner preparation with less than stellar performance at work only services to support her theory that he can’t separate the two worlds and if the children hadn’t have been around, she would have pointed this out to him in excruciating detail. She supposes that it’s possible that the reason he can’t understand that she sees work and housework as separate issues is that he has never had her talent and so he has had no choice but to be content to coast through both. He accuses her of emasculating him and then comes home and turns around and whinges like a little bitch, she wonders if he is able to see the irony of the situation. She wants to give him some degree of latitude but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t tempted to just throw the meatloaf at him and tell him to cook it himself and, to be honest, it’s something that may well happen if he continues to complain. 

Tom leaves her in the room, which is probably a good thing considering how she feels about him right now but it also means that she is left alone with her thoughts. This is not how she wanted this evening to go, she did want them to have sex and yes she did want to be in control but not for reasons that Tom has attributed to her actions. She doesn’t want to dominate Tom or to make him into some kind of second class citizen, she just needs to prove to herself that she can do this and that she can be enthusiastic about it. It’s not about controlling him, it’s about controlling herself, about suppressing the part of herself that wants Bree. 

As if Tom and Bree weren’t causing enough turmoil in her life, Carlos and Gabrielle decide that they want to use her services to pimp them as parent material. She might be paranoid but she gets the distinct impression that Carlos remains uncomfortable in her presence and she hopes it relates to the kiss and not just the fact that he asked her to have an affair because that might suggest that kissing her is something that’s not easily abandoned. Knowing her luck, the effect is probably isolated to Carlos alone and does not extend to the neighbour that she wants to be addicted to her kisses. Things really would have been a lot easier if she’d have had an affair with Mr Solis rather than Mrs Van de Kamp, she would have been able to protect her heart and she wouldn’t have lost her best friend. The thunderbolt might be fabulous but it doesn’t come with any guarantees and maybe it’s safer to avoid it, to avoid the devastation of losing a love that burns too bright to last.

Finding herself pressed up against the wall in the elevator is strange, it’s a reminder of a different time, a time when things were a lot simpler but she still has to contend with the issue of control. Tom would apparently prefer that she was just a passive participant but she needs to be active and she needs to know that life is going to go on without Bree. When she won’t play by the rules, he uses force to pin her arms to the wall like she is some butterfly designed to be scrutinised and inspected and it takes all of her self-control not to plant her knee firmly in his groin in protest. In the end she surrenders because she has to save her marriage and if she’s truthful she does enjoy the illicitness of the encounter. Tom is clearly buoyed by the experience and that night goes to the effort of complimenting her cooking. He helps put the children to bed and then leads her to the bedroom, fumbling at the door while he kisses her neck. Sex with Tom has always been good but it doesn’t feel the same anymore, somehow the thunderbolt from Bree has fried her heart and mind and she doesn’t want him as much as she once did. He pulls her down onto the bed and she freezes as she touches sheets that have clearly been starched, “What’s this?”

“I made the bed,” he replies with a grin that indicates that he is very proud of himself.

“Where did you get these sheets?”

“In the bag in the cupboard.”

“These are Bree’s”

“I know,” he leers and raises his eyebrows, “don’t you love the idea of defiling sheets that she has made all prim and proper, look they are even ironed.” He moves his hand over the impossibly smooth surface.

“I can’t,” she pushes herself back up from the bed.

“Lynette they are just sheets, it’s not like she’s here watching us.” She wants to run but her legs won’t work and she wants to yell at him but the curare that has immobilised her legs is apparently making it’s way up her body, unfortunately it has yet to silence her lacrimal glands. He seems legitimately concerned by her response and gets off the bed himself, “I’m sorry, it was meant to make you happy.”

“I know,” she can recognise the effort that he’s made.

“Does this mean I’ve ruined my chances of sex for the night?”

“Probably.”

“I don’t mean to be difficult but you do know that they are just sheets don’t you?”

“Yes I do.”

“I didn’t think you’d feel so strongly about this,” he begins to pull at the sheets.

“Don’t!” he seems perplexed by her response. “I’ll do it myself.”

“Lynette what the hell is going on?”

“I had a fight with her.”

“You two have fought before.”

“This was different, I don’t know if I can make it better. I said things that I probably can’t take back.”

“She’s not your only friend.”

“I know but she lives right across the street and I won’t be able to ignore her and my other friends aren’t her.”

“You mean they don’t look down at you from their ivory towers?”

“She’s not like that,” she can’t believe he doesn’t know what drives the defensive tone in her voice.

“You two are the ones fighting; I’m trying to be on your side.”

“I don’t want to be fighting at all.”

“Well I guess you’ll either make up or you won’t and as you don’t want my support can I just say for the record that I’m surprised you feel like this, I always thought you two had a friendship of convenience, you don’t have anything in common other than living on this street.”

“She is very important to me Tom,” her near confession comes with a fresh flood of tears.

“Hey,” he wraps his arms around her, “you’ve still got me.” She looks over his shoulders at the pristine white cotton and realises that that is almost no consolation at all.


End file.
